Come and Play
by Superficial Faith
Summary: An introspective on Sasuke letting go once everything he believed in is lost.


**Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to its rightful creator, Masashi Kishmoto, and all other companies that have decided to endorse it. No profit is being made from this story nor is it advocating for any of the companies that hold the copyrights to the series.**

"_It is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride"_

-Anonymous

Things weren't supposed to end up like this. No, never like this.

He was supposed to be the epitome of perfection and power—to be able to achieve heights no one had ever reached before—but in the end, he still wasn't able to control it; helpless. Totally—completely— helpless. His only chance at starting over taken; gone. Forever alone.

His brother, gone. His teacher, gone. A friend and a possible lover, all gone. _Dead._

He questions how it happened, what started all this—why he is now mourning on his hot and sticky summer day, the dried mixture of others' blood and the mud from the cliff he is standing on slowly caking on his legs and face. Was it his brother, always giving him something to strive for? Was it his former friends, endlessly chasing him to the ends of the earth, causing him to only distance himself even more from them? Or was it Orochimaru, cursing him with what only stoked the fires of his hatred, even after his death?

He wants—_needs_—someone to blame, someone to take his rage upon, only that no one is left and he finally accepts something that he realized long before, but never wanted to believe true—that there is no one to blame but himself.

He cries out in frustration, at the injustice of it all—wonders why these things always happen to him; why he must be the only one to endure this seemingly eternal suffering—and it hurts him to admit that he deserved it all, that he was the one that caused this unsightly chain of events to happen; knowing that it is because of his own fault, and his own fault alone—no one to rightfully blame.

Deep down, he knows that he chose this cursed path of his own free will, not even bothering to try and heed the warnings of those who cared, charging recklessly forward. None of that seemed to matter then, but now he realizes that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction—Newton's second Law of Motion—can never be avoided, and this time it had nothing to do with physics.

"_Why me?"_ he asks himself. "_Why me?"_

"_What about you?" _another voice he long thought dead says. _"Since when does this world revolve around you? No, it was never about you."_

He squashes the voice down, refusing to acknowledge the fact behind it. This was always about him—_his_ goals, _his_ dreams, _his_ life—and yet, all he wanted to go back to after everything in his life was made right again had disappeared—slipped through his fingers like how the vision of a dream fades away into the mist of awareness when one first wakes up.

He looks out over the cliff, and a flag at half mast—black like his soul—waves mockingly back at him as the smoke from funeral pyres curl up towards the sky.

"_Come play with me," _it seems to say. _"Come and play with me where all your friends are and will remain. Don't you want to join them?"_

Yes, yes he does, but he cannot—not after what he's done. He'd taint the innocence of their ashes, making their hearts become black like his. Not when that day not so long ago plays again and again in his mind, reminding him of whom and what he is.

Nothing had prepared him for that day when he lost all control, unleashing hell upon them. He doesn't remember what caused it, only that it made his blood boil and the hairs on the back of his neck bristle in anger and hate.

He had killed whoever stood in his way, not caring who it was or how desperately they begged him to spare their families, to spare them their lives—_all_ had to die. He _had_ to hear the sound of tendons snapping, to feel the softness of the organs that his hand grabbed along with his Chidori. He needed their cries of agony and pleas for mercy. But time had stood still for the barest of seconds when a scream in agony and a sob of all hope lost had reached his ears.

He had looked down at his hand—at what it held—and all the fight, all the hate and rage he felt before, drained right out of his body. It was a human heart—no, not just any human heart, but _her_ heart—and the sight had nearly torn his own right out of his breast.

It was Sakura's heart that he had felt give a feeble flutter before dying away, and suddenly everything was worthless.

He had dropped to his knees, screaming in utter abandon, his hands fisting in his hair. The sight of the blood that spattered the walls left and right made him feel sick, and he had vomited the contents of his stomach onto the bloodstained earth underneath him, the sour taste of bile barely registering with the salt of his tears.

It had been a bittersweet moment for him, kissing her lightly on her bloodied lips and gently closing her lifeless eyes while whispering what fragments of apologies he was able to.

He had later learned that Naruto had died of a broken heart upon hearing what his best friend had been reduced to.

All his fault.

It disgusts him now that he believes such a memory to be fond, but it makes a twisted sense of reason within him. It had humbled him, shown him just how wrong he and his ideals were and just how much he was loved.

Hate was no longer a word in his vocabulary, and vengeance was just a jumble of letters that were void in meaning.

_"Come play with me, Uchiha,"_ the flag beckons him again. _"Come and play with the ones you cherish."_

He can no longer resist.

_"Yes, I'll play," _he answers. _"Yes, I'll come and play with you. Let me come play with the ones I love, if only temporary. For them, I leave all my sins behind, never to be looked upon again."_

I smiles ghosts across his lips, the corners turning upwards at his thought.

_"I will let go."_

**Author's Notes: Constructive criticism is much appreciated, and thank you for reading. :)**


End file.
